Paiokp’s determination to tell the family of eir curse stayed with em through the night. Ey woke up scared but sure in eir course. Until they were all gathered for breakfast, when suddenly eir courage deserted em, and ey sat, silent, unable to find eir voice.

Was this anything like Kyatchais felt, Paiokp wondered, when the spinner couldn’t talk and used hand-speech? But Paiokp’s hands were clenched tight and wouldn’t relax, so even if ey knew the hand-speech well enough to try using it, ey couldn’t have said anything.

Ey could feel Lefeng and Kolchais watching em, but even blunt-Lefeng chose not to push.

Paoikp didn’t know if ey was grateful or disappointed.

Before ey could break eir silence, someone knocked on the gate, and everyone jumped a bit. As always, Lefeng was up and striding toward the gate before anyone else could move, but this time Kolchais followed em. Whoever their visitor was didn’t come in but spoke with them at the gate. When Lefeng and Kolchais returned, Kolchais was visibly giddy, and Lefeng was smiling broadly.

“That,” ey said with satisfaction, “was a messenger from the Stitch-Brights. We have our first clients and our first commission. Three collars and a pair of wrist cuffs, in undyed linen, grey wool, and red-dyed linen. They barely haggled the price Kolchais set and paid half upfront!”

For one moment, there was silence, then everyone began celebrating. Chotaikytsai cheered, Kyatchais jumped to eir feet and began spinning. Chestef was spinning, too, and dancing around Kyatchais. (Ey was young enough Paiokp didn’t think ey fully understood, but ey had sat in on several discussions Tsouchm and Kolchais had had about money and knew how important it was for the family to start getting paid.) Tsouchm clapped, and Paiokp emself raised eir fists above eir head with a yell.

“Wonderful!” Chotaikytsai said again, “We are going to celebrate tonight! I will need to go to market to get something special for dinner. And an extra bucket of ale!”

“I’ll go with you,” Kolchais said, still grinning and bouncing in eir toes like the spinner sometimes did. “We need more yarn to work with — I don’t think we even have any red.”

They finished breakfast quickly. Paiokp helped Tsouchm and Chestef clean up while Lefeng and Kyawtchais returned to the workroom and their existing projects. A few minutes later, Paiokp joined them and looked around the room unhappily. The room was in complete disorder, with projects and yarn lying in random baskets and odd corners. If they were going to do this properly, they needed a way to store their things, yarn and projects both, when they weren’t being worked on.

Chests would work but would be expensive. Shelves, ey decided instead. Going back out for charcoal, ey quickly sketched out on the back wall of the workroom where ey thought shelves and cubbies should go. Chotaikytsai’s family must have had something similar once, but it was long gone… They would want a mix of small cubbies and larger ones so smaller projects didn’t get buried and lost. And bins for yarn, ey thought. For now, they would buy yarn as they needed it, but in time they’d want to have a supply of yarn on hand for just about anything they’d need. The morning went quickly, and when Paiokp was sure of what ey thought would work, ey sought out Tsouchm to talk about what they would need to build it.

Chotaikytsai and Kolchais were out until nearly sundown, late enough Lefeng was pacing before the gate, hand on eir dagger when they finally returned. Paiokp hurried over to help Lefeng take their packages, knowing Kolchais especially would be in pain after being about so long.

“We were mobbed,” Kolchais said shakily. “Never in my life have I walked so slow, we could barely move three steps and someone else would be there.”

“Was there any trouble?” Lefeng asked.

Chotaikytsai shrugged. “Nothing of note. People are curious, but some are unhappy. I recognized some as being from families that are against our acceptance. They are unhappy that we found any trade at all, and even more unhappy it is such a notable one.”

Paiokp hurried to put the yarn away and then helped Kolchais ease down to sit on stones warmed by the hearth fire.

“We will need to celebrate tomorrow, I’m afraid,” Chotaikytsai was saying, “It’s too late to start cooking tonight, so I brought some bread on the way home for now, and we’ll have our feast in the morning.”

The bread was still warm from the bakery ovens, flat rounds that were studded with nuts and beans. They ripped the two loaves apart and passed them around, along with the promised two buckets of ale.

It had been a good day, and feast or no feast a good ending to it. Paiokp might have been prepared to leave it at that, but ey caught Lefeng watching em, and knew that eir silence from that morning hadn’t been forgotten.

Paoikp looked down at eir hands. They had long been callused from years of working rope and gutting fish, but many old calluses had slowly been fading over the last months. Now replaced by new calluses from tearing up and rebuilding the home. More recently, tiny calluses, barely worthy of the name, were forming on eir finger pads from wielding needle and yarn instead of rope and gutting knife.

“I…” Paiokp stopped, swallowed. “I need to tell you something.”

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